Lawsuit challenges Alabama's plan to execute a death row inmate with nitrogen gas

Alabama is preparing to employ a new method of execution using nitrogen gas following botched attempts at lethal injections last year. But a spiritual adviser to death row inmates told CBS News he filed a lawsuit last week challenging the method that even veterinarians have refused to use, citing its "distressing" effects and potential lethal hazards to others who are present.

Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Hood's lawsuit claims that an execution using a mask to give a prisoner pure nitrogen gas to breathe, causing them to suffocate, could place his life at risk and prevents him from properly administering spiritual support to condemned inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith.

Hood, a vocal opponent of the death penalty who works with the group Death Penalty Action, claims in his lawsuit that the state's use of nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method "presents potentially significant dangers to his own life, and violates the religious liberties of both himself and Mr. Smith."